


Five Knots on the Line

by keire_ke



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 06:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2219313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Bucky was hopelessly tangled with the Winter Soldier and the one time he unravelled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Knots on the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Much gratitude for Kernezelda, for helping me untangle my own thoughts. :)

**The Asset**

He isn't wired to let go. Every single nerve in his body was beaten into tenacity, into not letting go. Eliminating the target is his prime commandment, his reason for living, his truth, his everything. Protect the Asset, a secondary directive, to be factored into a plan as a secondary goal. Asset eliminates target, Asset protects itself.

Asset never lets go.

Which is why the Asset finds itself extremely confused when the cybernetic hand opens, gravity takes hold, and he plummets toward the river through a cloud of debris. The confusions lasts only a moment. Soon the training takes over: the mode of transport is going up in flames, so a drop into the river is the safer bet, the Asset reasons, folding his arm around his injured hand and taking a deep breath, a fraction of a second before his boots hit the water.

The man that is his mission is in the water, too, slowly sinking to the river bed like a bloodied comet.

What the hell is a comet, the Asset thinks furiously, fighting the pull of gravity. How is it relevant? Get to the mission, his body urges. You must not fail. You don't fail. Failure is not an option. He swims, hindered by the weight imbalance, by the damage done to his shoulder, curse the flesh and bone. When he finally has his mission in range, the promise of peace that comes from completion overwhelms him, just one more stroke, one slash of his knife, and he'll have _the roaring fury that comes from seeing that his mission is not breathing_ —

[The man's lips are cold, unmoving, and there's only time enough for one breath](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/post/95945308304/steve-always-had-trouble-breathing-fortunately), the last of air in the Asset's lungs. It's jeopardizing the secondary directive, but it's necessary, for the sake of the mission.

When he breaks the surface of the water, his metal fingers clenched around the man's collar, his mind is at peace, even though his mission, his life, his entire world lies breathing, bleeding, _living_ on the sand.

 

**Natasha Romanov**

Natasha… holds on. That's the long and short of it. She wakes up in the morning, gets up, does seven unconscionable things, and that's when she arrives at work, acts like she knows everything, maybe slays an alien that has no business looking like a laser wrapped in a bear suit. All in a day's work. Occasionally, and before the battle fatigue fades, she needs to let go.

Her feet aren't used to the slippers anymore, but she laces them up anyway, asks JARVIS for her Megadeath playlist and goes through her warm-up routine. Her limbs aren't as flexible as they used to be, not ballet-grade, anyway; no theatre would take her as a background dancer now. Still, the mirror on the wall shows that her arabesque is flawless.

The mirror also shows Barnes watching her through a crack in the door. Natasha looks his reflection in the eye, smiles, and smoothly moves from the first arabesque into _fouétte en tournant_.

On the fifth turn, she sees Barnes mirroring her, with all the lethal grace of a killer, but not quite the posture or range of a dancer. His balance is good, but the movements jerky, when he forces himself into a pirouette he hasn't worked up a proper momentum for. She comes to a stop, shuffles her feet and closes her eyes. What's the very first thing she was taught that wasn't holding a pistol?

First position, second, fourth and fifth. Plié. Balancé.

Barnes fights to maintain balance when they move to the leg lifts, but keeps up, in spirit at least. Slowly she works their way to the harder bits, imagining the stern voice of her ballet teacher and the thrashing she'd give him now, if he dared to come near her with the stick again. Barnes would probably throw him out the window at the first comment about his lack of flexibility, which is even more uplifting.

Barnes keeps his gaze fixed on the mirror as they work their way through the forms and spins. He lacks the endless years of discipline and training, but he has a good ear and a body used to obeying the mind. Natasha has very little sentiment in her, but even she has to stand up and proclaim: the best part of her week is when the playlist slides from Tchaikovsky to swing, and he forgets the mirror entirely. His cybernetic hand ends up on her waist, allowing her to whirl around it. She lands on points and pirouettes away, and he follows, easily catches her when he jumps, lifts her in the air, follows her lead through a series of leaps and cartwheels.

When her playlist ends, Barnes' eyes return to the mirror. He disappears long before he clears the door, narrowly avoiding Steve on his way out, and Natasha feels… privileged. Her feet are killing her; they've been dancing for hours. Steve catches her when she stumbles, helps her to the side, where she peels the ballet shoes off her feet.

"He's working on it," she says, and the words turn his head. "Leave him to it. Now, Stark's went past three times, pretending he's being covert, what's he up to?"

 

**Clint Barton**

Clint often wakes in the middle of the night. Sometimes it's an unexpected noise, sometimes it's a full bladder and sometimes it's just an aftershock of adrenaline, burning through into the wee hours of the morning. Never nightmares. He's past that. But sometimes he just wants a beer.

It's three a.m. and Clint rolls out of his hammock – Stark has a sense of humor worthy of a ten-year-old, but a man grows to appreciate it. Stark's ideas have merit, particularly after a mission – and goes for the kitchen. His private kitchen has no beer. They all put their foot down, even as they let Stark gather them into the tower, about being coddled and waited upon, so filling their own kitchens with their own food was their own problem. It was a problem, too: Clint was great at filling his own fridge only when he had a dog to feed.

Plus, it's kinda hard to do a grocery run while fighting an army of giant Care-Bear Nazis, or whatever that last thing even was. He wasn't keeping track, so long as the hides were thin enough to be pierced by arrows. The important thing is, tomorrow they have a day off, and battle-readiness is expected not to exceed being awake, so Clint closes his empty fridge, opens it again and throws out the moldy lemon, slams it shut and goes prowling. The common area has a fridge the size of a small country, there's got to be beer in there.

He is right about the presence of beer, at least. That strikes him the moment he walks into the Great Kitchen Area. There's beer of all kinds stacked on the counter and the shelves, some of it still dripping moisture. Clint stares at the bottles and carefully opens the fridge, holding a kitchen knife behind his back.

Barnes blinks up at him sleepily, curled up and wrapped in an alpaca blanket that Rogers got him for Christmas, because, according to Stark, "alpacas are basically unicorns, only fluffier, and magical, who doesn't like a unicorn pelt to hide in?" Knowing Stark he bought an alpaca farm for Rogers to sit in the middle off, waiting for the animals to bequeath their woolly curls for the cause.

But magic properties of alpacas aside, Clint's still really interested in the contents of the fridge. "Sorry," he says, showing both his unarmed palms, casually pretending he wasn't ever holding a knife, "didn't mean to wake you. I was looking for Guinness."

Barnes moves one of his three pillows and produces a black can from underneath his head.

"Thanks. Have a good night." Clint stares at the slowly closing door for a few seconds, wondering if Rogers knows, whether he should tell him, and whether there is a form of therapy that covers sleeping in fridges. TLC probably has a show.

He turns away, beer in hand, but the sound of the fridge door opening stops him from leaving. "Steve knows," Barnes says, and closes the door again.

By the time Clint stumbles into that kitchen in the morning the counters are spotless and the fridge is full of beer so frosty it must have been there for hours. A good thing, too, as Stark is already making lists of which brands he wants taken along for the picnic, and off-handedly makes plans to improve his mini-fridge. Barnes is perched in the corner, curled protectively around a plate of eggs and bacon, which is usual for him, and Steve seems relaxed enough to joke with Nat, so who's Clint to judge. He grabs a plate and helps himself to the leftover bacon and a heap of crumbled hash browns, which he barely has time enough to eat before Stark starts loading the minifridges on legs with the left-overs.

 

**Bruce Banner**

Bruce is one of the unlucky people who, when confronted with the Winter Soldier, know they don't have to run. He would know this even if the man was wearing body armor and three different rifles, not a washed-out pair of jeans and a Led Zeppelin tee shirt, over something red with sleeves. It's a curse more than a blessing, a testament to how not well he is. He knows, so it is not particularly courageous of him to hold his ground as the man advances, handgun that made its way into a minifridge god only knows how at the ready.

Captain Rogers is down, and going by the size and heat signature of the crater he's not getting out anytime soon, and Bucky Barnes took it extremely poorly. Bruce holds out his hands, feeling, despite everything, small and unprotected, though what man could feel unprotected with Black Widow ready to jump into the fray on his behalf, and tries to reason with the man he's sure is already down the same crater as their esteemed leader, physical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

"Barnes, don't," Bruce says. "We don’t know what went wrong, we don't know what went off, you can't go jumping in without—" But Barnes ignores him entirely. Which is okay, Bruce is not a confrontational guy, and he knows how high he ranks in Barnes' estimation of people worth listening to, but he can be stubborn, so he jogs to catch up and maybe try to talk some sense into a man with none.

"I really wouldn't recommend," he starts saying, but the Winter Soldier keeps walking toward the giant hole in the ground, all purpose, no give, and Bruce feels small as he lifts his hands and stops him dead in his tracks. "James," he says, "no."

For a moment he sees Barnes, furrowed brows and pursed lips, no less determined, no less focused, but human, eyes darting to where the smoke is becoming a permanent feature in the skyline, a thin column of grey ash. "Steve," he whispers, looking through Bruce.

"Rogers is going to be fine," Bruce says, willing the universe not to make him a liar. He has a good feeling about that – Thor followed Captain Rogers into the fray, so the universe is trying, but Barnes is locking up, is being locked up, and the soldier is no longer staring through Bruce. The soldier is noticing an obstacle, a wall between him and his mission. Bruce doesn't like where this is going, but isn't surprised it's going that way.

The next second Bruce he shot in the stomach with Barnes' handgun. Oh well, he thinks. He tried. The big guy's a lot more persuasive.

 

**The Hulk**

Puny human, Hulk thinks, grasping the metal arm in one fist and holding it up, the soldier dangling beneath. Hulk crumples the gun with his fingers. Bullets are so annoying. No trouble, but the soldier kicks. Hulk tries to be gentle, but the soldier kicks again and Hulk is surprised to feel it connect. Not so puny, this one. Hulk grabs the soldier's other arm, locks his grip around both arms and torso, and stands still, like a rock.

Captain made other guy promise. Soldier stays on the street, no matter what.

"Let me go," the soldier says. His boot connects with Hulk's knee. It almost tickles.

Hulk says nothing.

"Let me go, goddamnit!" the soldier screams, thrashing in earnest.

"Captain says you stay."

"Bucky," Widow says. "Calm down."

"He's down there—"

"Thor followed. They'll be fine, but you need to calm down."

"Let. Me. Go!"

Hulk keeps holding. Gentle. Hulk can be gentle. But unmovable.

"Alright, I won't jump," soldier says, twisting to look Hulk in the eye. "Let me go."

Hulk may be big and strong and good for smashing, but Hulk is not an idiot. Hulk grips the soldier in his hands until Thor emerges from the crater, one bloodied hand at a time, and Captain with him, crawling onto the asphalt and gasping for breath. Then Hulk releases the soldier.

Hulk is indestructible, but he is not an idiot.

 

**+1 Bucky Barnes**

Bucky gets to his room mad. Not at Hulk, or Bruce – he has a hard time being mad at either, and he _shot_ Bruce, holy shit – not at Natasha, not even at Steve, who went charging into the explosion like an idiot. He can't even find a reason for being mad, he just is, and that makes him even madder.

"Buck?" Steve opens the door slowly, as though he's dreading what's on the other side. "You okay?"

"I'm mad," Bucky says numbly, staring at his hands, one silver, one flesh. They twitch, and the compulsion to hit something suddenly feels a lot like a desire to break a bone, preferably his own.

"At me?"

"No." His memory is playing tricks on him, now and then. He thinks he remembers watching a ballet once, but Steve shook his head and said they couldn't have afforded it, before the war. He's not sure what he knows, what he dreamt or imagined, but he knows he can't be mad at Steve for acting stupid. It'd be like being mad at ice for being cold.

"Why are you mad?"

"You could have died!" Which is really nothing to be mad about, Steve's been trying to get killed ever since he took his first breath, probably. Bucky really wouldn't be surprised if Steve's first words had been "wanna fight?" The little punk went through all of his life fighting, even back when a sudden mosquito attack could take him out of commission for a week, so why is he even surprised that something as minor and fucking ignorable as a lizard attack on New York City didn't even warrant wearing proper armor.

To be fair, the lizards came out of the ground in the middle of an Avenger picnic in the park, so Bucky is willing to let the lack of armor slide. It still makes him mad, though.

"We're soldiers, Buck."

Yeah, like he doesn't know that, goddamn it. Steve could have died.

"You could have died," he says weakly, sinking onto the floor. Oops. He was certain his bed was there, but no, he collapses onto the carpet, hitting the back of his head in the process. "Oh hell." He knows, alright? He knows they are soldiers, he knows that's a hazard, he knows that when Steve eventually gets himself killed there'll be no one to blame. Except maybe lizards. It's just that when he thinks about it he _can't fucking breathe_.

"Bucky," Steve says, and then there's a hand covering half his face, cradling his jaw, and soft lips covering his. Bucky's mind goes entirely blank. Steve breathes out, and Bucky has no choice but to match his pace, inhale when he exhales. Focus on the tempo and rhythm.

Focus on Steve.

"Didn't think that was ever going to be handy," Steve jokes, his hands still on Bucky's face. "The internet is so helpful. Although apparently a paper bag is more traditional, but not advised for people with a heart condition. Which I don't think you have."

"What."

"You were hyperventilating. Breathing exercises are supposed to help."

…breathing exercises? Bucky thinks numbly, looks up at the ceiling, then cranes his neck to look at Steve, whose face is a lot pinker than it normally is, and who seems to have breathing issues of his very own, all of sudden.

And that's when Bucky realizes (or perhaps remembers, it's so hard to tell the difference these days) something fundamental about himself. Something he thinks he may have always known, a line the he was following even when he was scanning Steve's immediate surroundings with the sight of his rifle, when he was fishing out the skinny, stupid kid from Brooklyn's dirty alleys; the line was something that ultimately controlled even the Asset, as it always controlled Bucky.

He follows the line to its end and realizes (remembers?) that the end of it there's a messy tangle, and at the center of it, as he's always been, is Steve Rogers.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea that Bucky is an accomplished dancer comes from that one post on Tumblr, on dating policies in the 40s and just how good a dancer Bucky had to have been to score a date for himself and Steve, given his apparent social status. (it was more complicated than that)


End file.
